Four years after Shizuoka and England's defeat to Brazil on a hot and humid afternoon, it seems Sven-Goran Eriksson and his players encountered the same problem against Paraguay in Frankfurt.
The main factor in the rather insipid second half display, according to Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, John Terry and Paul Robinson, was the heat. Gerrard said, "during the warm up we knew it was going to be a tough game", while Terry spoke of there being "a few blisters in the dressing room" after the match and of "having a dry mouth for the first five minutes of the second half". Beckham was adamant that no one who hadn't been on the field could understand how hot it was to play in the 3pm kick-off.
"We haven't encountered heat like that before," reckoned Eriksson, while Frank Lampard at the press conference to receive his man-of-the-match award echoed others when saying they could not prepare for these conditions in the pre-tournament training.
So, are they correct? Or could the week spent in Portugal, which was warm but not truly hot, have been switched to a more difficult climate?
Jamie Jackson is part of the Observer team covering the World Cup
